


No shadow at the door

by iridania



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Feels, Back to Earth, Established Relationship, Gen, Happy Ending, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Female Character, POV Outsider, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 05:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13920165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridania/pseuds/iridania
Summary: There’s a shadow-man at her door, hand raised but never knocking. He’s trying to tell her something, but he has no words for what he’s come to say.(Lance comes home.)





	No shadow at the door

**Author's Note:**

> Written before season 5 (but no spoilers for that!). Depending on what the Garrison is up to, I think this might still fit into canonverse.  
>   
> Beta'ed by @[Neera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neerapen/): all remaining Englishfails are mine.

There’s someone at the door. A man, gazing through the frosted glass, hand ready to knock but never knocking.

She sees him by chance, as she’s bringing the empty dishes back to the kitchen, forks and spoons jiggling on the tray. He’s waiting for something, she decides, not for someone: like he’s afraid of being in the wrong place.

His shadow is still there when she’s finished loading up the dishwasher. He would be a poor excuse for a burglar, and maybe he’ll be a poorer one for a guest. But he has piqued her interest now.

“Uh.”

The man takes a second to drop his hand when she opens the door. His fingers unclench, but they’re still unsure what to do when his arms fall to his side. She guesses they’d be tapping on his leg if he weren’t so startled.

His eyes are huge and surprised when they meet hers, and she realizes she was mistaken. The shadow _is_ a man, but it’s also a boy: young and tired in the pale light of the morning. There’s a faint touch of red on his cheeks, and his adam’s apple throbs a little, as she leans on the door frame.

“Yes?” she asks, not bothering to hide the amusement in her voice. “What can I do for you?”

“Hello,” the boy says. He tries to add something, but words fail him. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, dumb, before he gives up and bites his lower lip. His eyes never rise to meet hers again.

She wonders if he might need a _special_ kind of help. But no: he doesn’t look slow, nor lost... Not in the same way many people are these days, at least. His clothes — weak at the seams, colors starting to fade — have been worn too many times; but they are clean and freshly ironed. And, though his jacket covers his arms, she can tell he’s not hiding any of _those_ marks under there.

He’s not looking for money — the ones who do never knock in the first place, — but he still wants something from her. But what? That is the key.

“Can I help you?” she tries again. This time, she takes her hand away from the doorpost, to reassure him he can stay. “Do you want to come in?”

He looks at her in a weird way then, like she’s just done something reckless and dangerous, by inviting someone into her home. He thinks she should be more careful; she smiles and takes a step back instead. “My family is done with breakfast, but I can put together something for you, if you’re hungry.”

“No,” the shadow-man finds his voice again. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“Are you sure? I’ve got some homemade—”

“I—”, the man who’s still a boy says.

She takes out a chair for him. “Yes?” she smiles again.

He shakes his head: side to side, like a cat trying to get rid of the water in his ear. “I’m making a mess of this already,” he says, more to himself than to her.

What a weird shadow, she let slither in!

She lets him take his time, using the patience she’s forged over years of rearing boisterous children. Yet, when he finally seems to make his decision, somehow he still manages to surprise her. He steps forward, reaching for something around his neck.

He says nothing as he hands his pendant over to her. And nothing is what she feels, when she realizes that she was wrong a second time that morning. It’s not a necklace at all.

“How—Where—,” she’s the one unable to form words, now. Her hands shake, as she takes the seashell from him.

Its weight falls to her palm, and the memories come to the surface: life foam, floating in the ocean. She remembers sand, salt — and the sweet smile of her son, two years old and building castles for the first time.

She doesn’t notice her legs have given out until she finds herself on a chair, the man (yes, he’s a man again now) crouching beside her.

“I’m sorry,” he’s saying. But not to her. “I don’t know how to do this right.”

She moves her index fingers along the shell, feeling its grooves under her fingertips. Someone else must have done the same thing countless of times before her, drawing around the edges until the shell became smaller and smoother than she remembered. But it’s still the same one. The jewel of her little prince’s crown.

Her eyes start stinging. “Where did you find this?” she asks, voiceless. And then, because she has to: “Were you with him when it happened?”

The confusion returns to the man’s face. She’d find it endearing, in different circumstances.

“ _It_?” he frowns, like he’s solving a puzzle. And, more urgent, reaching out: “What did they _tell_ you?”

She takes a deep, deep breath: one that makes her chest hurt even after all these years of loss and regret. She’ll never be ready to talk about this. “That he disappeared. One night, when no-one was looking. In the morning he just wasn’t there anymore.”

He says nothing, frozen in his own shock, so she keeps going, letting the pain out. “He had a habit of sneaking out, even as a little kid. But this time… This time he didn’t come back. I thought it would.” She looks away at that, just to stare at the nothingness on her white walls and remember him again: at 17, young, and carefree, and full of life.

The man makes a sound: a choked breath, or maybe a gasp. She can’t be sure. “Were you with him, that night?” she asks again.

The answer comes this time. “Yes.”

She doesn’t know what emotion is making her heart swell: anger, or maybe relief. Her mind is strangely calm, like trapped in the eye of a giant storm. “So _you_ came back,” she realizes.

He flinches, hands retreating again.

A sad smile blooms on her face; a grime curve of her lips, full of guilt and regret. “My husband never gave up on him,” she says.

The man’s eyes grow alert at that. He stands up, looking around the kitchen and at the stairs to the second floor. “Is he around? I… I need to talk to him, too.”

“No.” For the first time, saying it doesn’t hurt.

“Hn?” The man stays close.

She clings to the little seashell. “He died, two years ago.”

It’s the silence that always gets to her. A space where no heart beats anymore.

“ _What_?” There’s a horrible note in the man’s voice, a dread that can’t be faked.

She looks at him again, and she can see that he _cares_. He actually cares about a man he never knew; about her, even! But _why_? She tries to make sense of the stranger in her home. As she looks, the man shakes his head — _no, no, no_ —, like he’s trying to make a voice shut up inside him.

“He died,” she repeats, slowly. “But he never gave up.” For some reason, it feels important that he knows that. “He _never_ gave up.”

She can’t keep the tears back anymore. They run along her cheeks, raindrops falling on the seashell in her palm; that same seashell that was never anywhere but in her son’s pocket.

But why, she wonders — why does this man wears it around his neck? The answer escapes her, as he seizes her by the shoulders. “No”, gently, soothing. Unrelenting: “No, no, no. Listen,” there’s urgency in his voice. “He was right,” he says. “He was right!”

She looks up then, daring him to hold her gaze. But he’s not looking at her anymore: he’s just bent his neck to the side, eyes trailing somewhere to his right. “Gimme a sec,” he’s telling an invisible person. “Please I’m trying to—Just wait!”

He notices she’s looking at him, so he lets his hands slide a little bit further down her arms before letting go. “We disappeared,” he says. “But we came back.”

It takes her a moment to catch up. When she does, there’s the taste of blood in the back of her throat. “Don’t play with me,” she says.

“I’m not,” he swears. “We just… We thought it would be better if I came down here and tell you first. I’m sorry I messed up. I—”

“He’s…” she can’t bring himself to say it. To hope for it. Is her son—

The man smiles, eyes red and voice choked. “He’s alive.”

She would answer him with many questions. With fists and kicks, maybe: because this is the kind of hope that should never be given so carelessly.

But there’s another shadow at her door now, stepping in from behind the man. And a voice — a beautiful, warm voice — says: “I’m alive,” and everything inside her dies just to be reborn again.

Her son is there. Taller and stronger, with scars she’s never seen before and the ones she still remembers. Her son, sliding to his knees, as his arms close around her. “Mami,” he says. “Mom, I’m home.”

The man tries to move away then, but he keeps him there, just there — right hand on his wrist — like he needs him to stay. And she thinks she will have to ground his son for forever this time. Because you don’t run away to chase pretty boys in washed out clothes without telling anyone anything. Not even if your parents are the kind of people who never lose hope.

But she did lose hope, didn’t she? She did and now—

“I’m sorry,” her boy says, hiding his tears in her chest. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”

She’s the one who should apologize; and yet, she won’t: she needs to make something very clear to him first. A truth they both can’t escape. “But you’re home,” she frames his face with her hands. “You’re home, my little king.”

“Yeah,” he wipes his tears away. “I’m home,” he says, voice breaking. His big, bright smile is back, and she can really tell now: he still is her son. Changed; yet like he’s always been. Like he’ll always be.

He kisses her forehead and gives his right hand to the weird alien boy he’s found along the way.

“We’re home,” Lance says.

**Author's Note:**

> Keith is a well-meaning disaster. I love him.


End file.
